Publish or Perish

The questions below have been on my mind for a long time and I would be very interested to know what you guys think.

Publishing is a very important aspect of our careers, and some journals (like Nature and Science) have higher profiles than others.

Do you think that it's important to publish in high-profile journals while in graduate school?
Does publishing in journals like Nature or Science mean that you have "made it"?
Does not publishing there mean that your science/research is not important or innovative enough?
At what point during a career does publishing in this sort of journal become important?

What's your opinion?

"You can give somebody a book on 'How to ride bike' and then test that person on that knowledge. Even if that person gets an "A", it doesn't mean that he or she can ride a bike."---this is what I am telling myself when I get a bad grade....as long as you don't loose your passion, you'll be fine.....V

1. The number of papers you published tells how productive you are, although sometimes no paper just means you have bad luck.
2. The name of the journals where your papers appear is not critical. You know the guy who won his Nobel prize for inventing PCR did not publish in SCN--his paper was rejected by nature and science.

SO papers are important only to get an interview call in whatever field you look forward to make yr career in, then you got to show them wht you are and that by no means can any paper provide.....you need to know yr stuff and know it well.

But yeah having papers and good pedigree surely helps....but cannot gurantee anything if the means you choose are Fair. And if you are good you would never ever go the "not fair" way.

some fields are (at the moment) popular with science or nature, but I am quite sure they will not publish e.g. a fine taxonomic work unless it inclueds some "where does life come from" discussion, a full genome seqence or some kind of exciting Horizontal gene transfere from one group to another.....

So I think it is important to publisch good papers in the right journals for your field of research, this will help your career more than something in science or nature......especially as for young researchers papers in "normal" journals will more likely be seen as your work....
although I would not say no to such a publication but still working in a field where this is not very likely to happen....

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. (Oscar Wilde)

on top of what has already been said, it is exceedingly rare for a graduate student to publish in science or nature. most articles are by established investigators. and, while it would be quite a coup for a student to publish there, not publishing in them should not have any effect on a students future. that will be determined by the quality of the work which has been published.

talent does what it cangenius does what it musti do what i get paid to do

I agree that is more important to publish good work in an appropriate journal rather than trying to aim for high-profile journal.

I have been talking to scientist around me (senior scientist, grad-students, post-docs) and there seems to be the perception that publishing in Science or Nature is an “ought to” for a good career …..it isn’t a good perception, but it’s there and that makes me wonder. I would hope that a scientist would get acknowledged for his/her work and not for their number of Science or Nature papers.

"You can give somebody a book on 'How to ride bike' and then test that person on that knowledge. Even if that person gets an "A", it doesn't mean that he or she can ride a bike."---this is what I am telling myself when I get a bad grade....as long as you don't loose your passion, you'll be fine.....V

What we do and where we publish so much depends on the decision of the supervisor and we are judged after that.

True.....And at some point of your career you will be the supervisor. How important will it be where to publish?

"You can give somebody a book on 'How to ride bike' and then test that person on that knowledge. Even if that person gets an "A", it doesn't mean that he or she can ride a bike."---this is what I am telling myself when I get a bad grade....as long as you don't loose your passion, you'll be fine.....V

Publishing in one of the CNS journals is quiet important if one wants grants to be accepted. Also now a days its getting quite important to have a big paper if you want to get a position in any university.

1. The number of papers you published tells how productive you are, although sometimes no paper just means you have bad luck.2. The name of the journals where your papers appear is not critical. You know the guy who won his Nobel prize for inventing PCR did not publish in SCN--his paper was rejected by nature and science.

If you are talking about Kary Mullis, I believe the two landmark papers about PCR -- one describing how it works (using sickle cell anemia as a model I believe) and another describing the use of Taq, were both in Science, around 1985 and 1986. Maybe he had an earlier paper rejected? I disagree that the name of the journal is not important, even if it might not seem fair.

What bugs me is that I HATE writing (unless it's on a forum ). I'm a lab rat, I love reading and learning and face challenges but when I am in front of an empty piece of paper...total paralysis. I'd have so many papers if I could write, but I don't because I am bad at it and thus, my CV suffers.
I think I'm an OK researcher and find it unfair to be punished not to be a good author.

Theory is when we know everything and nothing is working. Practice is when everything is working and nobody knows why. Here, we combine theory and practice. Nothing is working and nobody knows why.

SO papers are important only to get an interview call in whatever field you look forward to make yr career in, then you got to show them wht you are and that by no means can any paper provide.....you need to know yr stuff and know it well.

But yeah having papers and good pedigree surely helps....but cannot gurantee anything if the means you choose are Fair. And if you are good you would never ever go the "not fair" way.

One relevant point is that a journal name does not reflect the quality of your paper. Only 25% of the Nature publications are responsible for 80% of its impact factor. I've seen not-so-good papers on Science/Nature and a lot of impressive papers on not-so-prestigious journals.

Seems to me that the innovation of the work is not a important factor to have your paper accepted in these journals, dispite what the editors say. The editors tend to prejudge papers not coming from traditional research centers. It's even worse if you don't have a previous work published on a high impact factor journal...

I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!
Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals?
So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich?
Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results!
I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy!
Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!

I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals? So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich? Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results! I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy! Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!

You realise that the majority of "good" open source journals are also peer-reviewed? Peer review is important otherwise you end up with work that is unacceptable scientifically (for methodology, reasoning/deductions/conclusions drawn etc) being published and wasting everyone's time working out what is a good paper and what is not.